


Who I Am

by GabrielsMyGuardian



Series: Darcy Manners [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Sigils, Spirit Board, Witchcraft, Witches, magick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-16 08:52:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7260865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GabrielsMyGuardian/pseuds/GabrielsMyGuardian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam needs to talk to Dean and a spirit board makes sense. But do you really think Sam would walk into Toys R Us and buy a Hasbro game board? Or would he use his resources and get something less, well, commercial?</p><p>Bobby makes a call and another hunter, Darcy Manners, meets Sam at the hospital. She brings a hand-made spirit board and teaches Sam to use it, along with a couple of other tips and tricks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who I Am

"Wait, Sam."

Sam stops in the doorway on his way out, looking at his father in the hospital bed. John's never seemed so small. His right arm is in a sling and there's a cut through his left eyebrow pointing at an ever-darkening bruise on his temple. There is grey in John's hair that Sam has never noticed before, grey in his beard. The room is as it should be, rather chilly and sterile. Sterile except for the wad of blood soaked gauze on the floor near the heart monitor. 

John sighs, "I promise I won't hunt this demon. Not until we know Dean's okay."

Sam nods and leaves.

~~~~~~

"Sam!"

Sam pulls up short on the sidewalk at the edge of the hospital parking lot, hands jammed in his jacket pockets. A small park with a swing set, a climbing dome, and a few scattered picnic tables spreads out behind him. The sun has just dipped behind the trees bathing everything in a pinkish-gold glow.

"Yeah, hi. Darcy?" He slips between the parked cars moving toward the stranger. Bobby had gotten the herbs on John's list, but Sam had needed something extra, something Bobby didn't recommend getting at a store. He'd placed a call to a hunter Sam didn't know who happened to be staying at the salvage yard for a few days.

"You can trust her, you hear," Bobby had told Sam before driving away with the Impala on a flatbed. "Trust her like you trust me."

Darcy waved at Sam. "How're you doing?"

"I'm okay, thanks. I just need to take care of some stuff, you know."

"That was a dumb ass question, I'm sorry." Darcy is sitting cross-legged on the trunk of her champagne colored Camry. Her long brown hair is gathered in a low ponytail, the end of which skims her waist. The breeze picks up wisps and carries them forward over her shoulder. "I'm sorry about your brother and your dad."

"Yeah, thanks. Listen, it's my brother, Dean. He's unconscious, a coma, cerebral edema, whatever that is, a head injury or something," Sam babbles. "Doctor doesn't know if he's gonna wake up."

"It means that his brain is swollen. Doc's not wrong, that's not good."

Sam is startled by her honesty. "But I know he's there, here. I can feel him. I need to talk to him."

"Okay. That's something I should be able to help you with."

"Thanks. Really." Sam steps forward and extends his right hand.

Darcy smiles and shakes his hand. "Good lord, this kid is tall," she thinks. Sam's face is covered in rapidly scabbing cuts and deepening bruises, the tangle of his hair drifting over his eyes. Darcy's heart caves while looking at him as the hospital parking lot's lights jump to life one by one.

Darcy slips off the trunk, cowboy boots clicking against the asphalt like the heels of ruby slippers making a wish. Straightening up in front of Sam she sees just how beat up he is. She lifts the hair away from Sam's face, revealing more bruising, her thumb brushing the skin under a cut below his right eye. 

"Are sure you don't belong in the hospital yourself?"

Sam closes his eyes and wriggles his shoulders without quite moving beyond her reach. "Crap, she's taller than Jess," he thinks. Out loud he says, "So, uh, how do you know Bobby?"

Darcy smiles at his aversion. "Bobby's pulled my ass out of the fire more than once. I've known him a long time. Since I was about your age."

She turns, opening the trunk. Colorful bundles wrapped in yarn dangle from the inside of the lid. There are pockets with books and papers tucked in them. The floor of the trunk is covered with wooden crates filled with jars and bottles and bags. Darcy slings a leather satchel over her shoulder and cradles a paper grocery sack in her left arm.

"Have you ever used one before?" She asks over her shoulder at Sam.

"Not by myself, no." Sam shrugged. "Not... not at all, actually."

"Let's have a little lesson then." Darcy closes the trunk. "Come on." She heads off into the park.

Sam stuffs his hands back in his pockets and follows her.

She passes through the playground and swings her leg over a bench at the table furthest from the sidewalk.

Sam points to the bench next to Darcy and raises his eyebrows.

"No, sit across from me."

Sam walks to the other side and folds his legs under the picnic table.

"Sit up straight," Darcy chides.

Startled, Sam throws his shoulders back. 

"This is serious, you need to be alert and ready to protect yourself. You want to talk to Dean, right?"

Sam nods, "Yeah."

"Well, Dean isn't the only one out there. Hospitals can be tricky, lots of folks die there. It doesn't make them malevolent, but it can sure make 'em confused. What you're doing, the energy you're gonna raise, is going to attract them."

Sam nods again, rubbing his forehead.

Darcy pulls a large black velvet bag out of the paper sack. It's gathered closed with satin cord and is embroidered in purple with an anti possession pentagram. The drawstring loosens easily and she slips out what at first glance looks like a cutting board and a small drinking glass. A crystal point and an amethyst geode tumble out of the bag too. As she turns the board to face him and sets it down, Sam can see numbers, letters, and some symbols carved into the smooth surface along with two words: Yes and No. She sets the drinking glass upside down over a symbol in the center of the board.

"I made this spirit board myself. It's a willow plank carved by hand at the Summer Solstice and charged while Jupiter traveled through the ninth house in Pisces and the Moon crossed the border into Sagittarius."

Sam blinks at Darcy. "I don't know what any of that means."

Darcy smiles. "It means it was created in love and light with positive intent under auspicious circumstances."

Sam smiles for the first time since they met.

"There you are," Darcy grins bigger. "Place your fingertips over the bottom of the glass."

Sam obeys.

"Your first question should be to ask if it's Dean you're speaking to. Once you're sure, ask other questions, one at a time. Keep them simple, yes or no if possible. Always wait for an answer before asking the next question. Establish a rhythm. This is your brother, you know him."

The summer evening is warm and the lingering twilight mixed with the glow from the humming street lamps gives the spirit board an ethereal quality.

"Should I lay down a salt circle?"

"No. Dean won't be able to get in."

"Right, of course," Sam shook his head.

"Do you know how to cast a circle without salt?"

Sam shakes his head. 

"Don't worry about it then. Just relax and focus. I know that sounds like a contradiction but if you clear you mind, let go of the worry in that moment, and focus on Dean, it'll help. Say a prayer if that's your thing. Chant. I'd say light a candle but they frown on that in hospitals."

Sam furrows his brow.

"Open flames and oxygen tanks."

"Ah," Sam replies.

"Ask to speak only to those who come in love and light and specifically to Dean. Help keep out the riff raff."

Sam knits his brows again but nods understanding.

"You know what," Darcy begins, opening her leather bag. After some rummaging she pulls out a black Sharpie. "Give me your hand."

Sam doesn't hesitate and extends his right hand.

"You're right handed?"

Sam nods.

Darcy opens the marker and turns Sam's hand palm up. On the inside of his wrist she draws a circle, topped by a half circle, over a cross.

"This is the symbol for Mercury. On you right hand it will help you communicate."

She gestures for his left hand, which Sam extends palm up. On the inside of his left wrist she draws one flowing line with three loops that begins in a spiral and ends in an arrow point.

"This is for strength and forward movement on your receptive hand." She closes the marker and sets it on the table next to the amethyst. "Dean's right handed too?"

Sam nods.

"Draw the same symbols on his wrists."

Sam stares at Darcy. "How do you know this stuff?"

Darcy stares back at him, narrowing her eyes slightly, deliberating.

"I'm a witch."

Sam frowns, puzzled, and continues to stare. Darcy holds his gaze. The pause is contemplative, not uncomfortable.

"And you're a hunter?"

"Yep."

"Huh."

Another pause, then Darcy elaborates, "I studied with a coven for a little while. Brought me to a good foundation. It was just a little too much religion for me.

"Most of what I know I've pieced together myself through experience. Some of it sort of comes to me coupled with lots of reading."

"Bobby knows?"

Darcy's face brightens with a smile. "Yeah, Bobby knows. Where do you think I find my reading material?"

"Wow."

"There's a lot of prejudice out there, so I keep it mostly to myself."

"Yeah, Dean kinda thinks witches are gross. Bodily fluids and communing with demons."

"Unfortunately, that's pretty typical. And painfully ignorant."

Sam chuckles. "So why'd you tell me?"

"People are always going to label you. If you're 'this' than you can't possibly be 'that'."

"Still, why're you telling me?"

"You seem like you'd understand how hard it can be to be who you really are. Everyone has ideas about you. They want you to be a hunter, a student, a witch, a son, a daughter, a brother, a sister, a friend... none of it's close to you. Or me. Or anybody else. We're way more complicated than any of those things."

Sam sighs and smiles. "Yeah. Yeah, I totally get that."

"There's something in you that you're playing pretty close to the vest, afraid people won't get it."

"Are you a psychic?"

It's Darcy's turn to laugh. "No, not really. More an interpreter. I read signs and omens. I can read a tarot spread. But again, that's interpreting, taking something that's there and knowing what to do with it. Lottery numbers are as much a mystery to me as they are to you."

"Oh," Sam responds. "But you talk to spirits?"

"Through something like this spirit board or a tarot deck, sure, I can communicate. I know they're out there. I know they're probably right here. They're very real and so is the power they have. But unless it's an entity that's gone full on corporeal I don't see them. I don't see ghosts or get visions of the future."

Sam sits in silence, looking down at the table. He picks up the crystal and sighs. 

"Why?" Darcy asks. "What's up?"

"I kind of do."

"Kind of do what?"

"Get visions."

Darcy nods for him to continue.

"They started about a year ago as dreams. Nightmares, really. Nightmares that started coming true."

"Like what?"

Sam is quiet, running his thumb over the facets of the crystal. The table is painted with a thick coat of industrial green, but there are splinters poking out in the gap between the slats. Darcy's earrings, sterling silver filigree wings, shimmer in the fading light.

"I was dreaming about by girlfriend's death."

Darcy gasped. "Oh, Sam! Oh, my god. I'm so sorry. That's horrible." Tears smart in the corners of her eyes and she reaches out and grabs both his hands.

"No, sorry!" Sam shrugs. "It's okay. Really." Then a single tear runs down Sam's cheek. Darcy shakes her head as Sam takes a deep breath. "No, it's not okay, but it is... we're hunting the demon..."

"Wait, what? Sam," Darcy stammers, "she was killed by a demon? And you're hunting it? You and Dean?"

"Well, yeah, it started with my dad. Because it killed mom first. But that was a long time ago." 

"Your mom was killed by a demon?"

Sam has never told anyone this. Everyone who knows the story heard it from someone else. It was common knowledge or a complete secret until this moment. The realization whirls around him and Sam chokes back a sob he's never known he needed to express. 

Darcy sucks in a deep breath, shuts everything Sam just said into a cupboard in her mind and slams the door. She has so many questions as tumblers click into place, but none of that will help Sam communicate with his brother.

She plants her feet firmly on the ground under the table and squeezes Sam's hands. "Are the visions still coming as dreams?"

He sniffles and takes a moment to catch his breath.

"No, I have them when I'm awake now. I'd don't have any control over them, they just sort of hit me."

"Hit you like a chill up your spine? Or more like a blinding spasm?"

"I guess it's a blinding headache most of the time."

"Okay, well, it's probably not something that's going away."

"Yeah, I know. I'm a freak for life," Sam grumbles.

"That's not a news flash. Can you name anyone in the life that isn't a freak? We're all a little touched in the head if not full-blown bananas. Have you met Bobby?"   
Sam snorts a laugh.

"However, you don't have to fly your freak flag. I don't go around with a pointy black hat. And I drive a Toyota, not a broomstick, most of the time. But I'll pull together and cast a spell while you're sitting there and you probably won't even know it happened. Unless I want you to know. Sometimes the production value for the benefit of others is extremely effective. You know, toss around some hocus-pocus.

"You need to learn to take care of yourself and manage your inner freak."

Sam looks at Darcy, another long but comfortable pause.

When he doesn't contribute, she asks, "Do you keep a journal?"

"Sort of. I'll write down clues. A license plate number. Check a map for train tracks if I hear a whistle in the vision. And there's Dad's journal."

"No, I mean a journal for your visions specifically. All the details you can remember. A way to keep track of when you have them. And maybe where? Heck, even what you ate that day might give you some insight."

Sam continued looking at Darcy.

She let his hands go and rubbed her fingers under her nose. "Do I have a booger or something?"

Sam laughed again. "No, it's just, when I talk to Dean about this he gets all worried. He pretends it doesn't bother him, but it does. And he doesn't like me to let anyone else know about it. My dad totally freaked and got pissed at Dean about not taking better care of me, like I'm just a kid."

"Sweetheart, you are just a kid."

Sam's face falls.

"In their eyes you'll always be a kid, the baby. There's no getting around that one."

Sam purses his lips together and takes a deep breath, frustrated, looking away.

"Hey," Darcy says and reaches across the table, taking his hand again. "That's the way they see you, not who you are. Who you are is up to you. You're a college student, right?"

"Not any more."

"Okay, fine. You're the guy who got into Stanford, right?"

"How do you know that?"

Darcy grins. "Bobby's kinda proud of you, you know. He likes to brag."

Sam grins back.

"The folks you help, they don't see you as a kid."

"I guess not." 

"They don't, I promise you. To them you're a hero."

Sam shrugs.

"And if your vision is what helped you save them, do you think they see you as a freak? Or as someone with a gift? Because without it, and you, they might not still be here. Now maybe your big brother Dean helped out with some of the heavy lifting, but you're the main attraction."

Sam thinks about Monica and baby Rose and getting them out of the house safely. "I never really looked at it like that."

"It's not easy to remember, especially in the thick of things. That's where the journal can help. Keep track of the good your visions do. Or how they manage to fuck things up royally. Learn from your successes and mistakes. You can turn these visions into a superpower."

Sam raises an eyebrow.

"I'm not saying overnight. But eventually, with practice, it'll happen."

"What's your superpower?"

"Graffiti."

"What?"

"Signs, symbols, sigils, ancient alphabets, transformative alchemy."

"Traps? The Key of Solomon?"

"Exactly. That's graffiti on a major and really fuckin' scary scale. Devil's traps are about precision. Ceremonial magick. Do it right and it's intoxicating. You've got control over something powerful. It's easy to get cocky. Screw that one up and people die. 

"Most of the time, stuff like this is all I need," she takes his left hand and tracks the Sharpie line on his wrist with her finger. 

Sam shivers at her touch.

"This is a positive energy. Strength. It's about intent. If the loops aren't precisely the same size it's not going to change how it influences you. What you're really making, with this symbol for Strength and the glyph for Mercury, is a circuit."

"What do you mean?"

Darcy picks up the Sharpie off the table and draws the same symbols on her own wrists.

"So, when you get upstairs in Dean's room, set up the board and the glass. Draw these on Dean and picture him sitting across from you like I am.."

"Okay."

"Put you fingertips on the glass." 

Sam does and Darcy does the same. Then she flips her hands over, showing the marks. Sam does the same.

"Your right hand projects, your left hand receives. In this case your intent is projecting your desire to communicate into my strength, or Dean's. His desire to communicate is projecting into your strength." She grabs Sam's hands. "A closed circuit. And he is there. He wants to communicate. Visualize that circuit closed, just the two you. It'll work at keeping other things out."

"You can feel him?"

"I feel something. Like I said, there's a whole lot going on in a hospital. I'm not sure. But you should probably go. Go talk to your brother."

Darcy slips the spirit board, glass, and stones into the velvet bag. She's about to put the Sharpie in too when she stops and looks at Sam.

"Do you trust me for one more thing?"

"Anything."

"Unbutton your shirt."

Sam frowns and blinks several times, then reaches for the top button of his brown plaid flannel. Darcy climbs onto the table and sits cross-legged in front of him, marker on the table next to her.

Once all the buttons are unfastened Sam blushes and drops his hands to his sides, gripping the edge of the bench.

"Relax," Darcy whispers and peels back his shirt and jacket revealing a nasty crescent bruise where Sam's chest slammed into the steering wheel of the Impala.

She exhales and looks Sam in the eye, watching him for a flinch that she's crossed a line, and places her hands gently in the center of his chest, thumbs and index fingers forming a triangle.

Her hands are warm, almost like a spark when she touches him and Sam gasps. Then, as the warmth settles and radiates out through his shoulders and into his core, he closes his eyes and breathes deeply. The sensation spreads like warm butter melting into a baked potato.

"Good, " Darcy says as she closes her eyes too and focuses healing energy through the center of her hands.

Once her prayer is complete, she opens her eyes and picks up the pen. Darcy slides his shirt and jacket back over his left shoulder. Sam blushes a little deeper and swallows hard but doesn't open his eyes.

Darcy smiles at his timidity as she lays her right hand over his heart. The beat picks up pace at her touch.

Sam doesn't react outwardly until the pen cap squeaks open and the felt tip moves over his skin above her hand. He looks at Darcy, pen cap clenched in her teeth. Then he looks down and watches her draw the same symbol that was embroidered into the black velvet bag onto his chest, a pentagram surrounded by flames.

When she's done she replaces the cap and set the pen down. 

"Graffiti."

"Graffiti," Sam repeats.

Darcy pulls the lapels of his shirt together and begins to work the buttons closed. "Draw all three on Dean." 

"I will."

She straightens Sam's jacket collar. "Be careful."

Sam takes a deep breath and finally loosens his grip on the bench. He reaches up, putting his hands on Darcy's knees. Darcy leans forward and wraps her arms around his shoulders, pulling him close. He slides his arms around her and buries his face into her shoulder. Darcy strokes the hair on the back of his head as his sniffles catch deep in his chest and he trembles out a sob.

Darcy, she builds a bubble,  
a swirling twirling white light,  
it seals all else out, engulfing  
and stretching a pulsing rhythm  
between them as they rock and sway  
Sam's tears drench Darcy's plea.

And the bubble grows.

White light turns to web entwined  
as orbs appear, curious but cautious  
at the tree line, pitching forward  
and back and forward, surging  
cadence catching love and light  
engaging, drawn to the sanctuary.

And the bubble grows.

The web thins to an elliptical thread,  
a gossamer shell, hardened armor  
forged in faith and vow to protect.  
Two orbs hold, ready to accompany  
one knight on his quest to secure  
the other's safe return, harming none.

And the bubble grows.

When Sam has finally cried himself out, he sits back and looks at Darcy.

"Thank you."

Darcy leans in and kisses him on the forehead. Then she tucks the velvet bag into the paper sack with the marker and hands everything to Sam. 

As Sam unfolds himself from the picnic table, Darcy divides the bubble, keeping each of them enveloped but separate. Sam sniffles and walks away quickly without looking back, his half surging around him with the two orbs whisking along in his wake.

Darcy stays on the table, meditating and maintaining both bubbles for hours. Several times through the night an ambulance roars past and around the building to deliver another broken body to the emergency room.

Just before sunrise, sprinklers pop out of the ground, hissing and spitting to life. Some of them are broken, including the one closest to the table. It gurgles a small fountain of water rather than dousing the picnic table and Darcy in a fine mist.

The parking lot slowly fills with patients making their way to appointments.

A tall wiry man in a black hoodie and jeans ambles toward the park from the hospital, toddler in tow. The little boy is dancing along next to him, feet tapping and kicking. Each step he takes yanks on his father's shoulder. Once they get to the grass he releases his son's hand and the boy races toward the swings. They spend more than an hour swinging and climbing and digging in the sand, both enjoying this reprieve. Then his cell phone buzzes and plays Black Flag. He talks for a minute before calling the boy over. The retaining wall makes an excellent place for them to sit and empty their shoes of sand. On their way back to the hospital, the boy looks back over his shoulder at the swings swaying in the breeze and waves with his free hand.

More people come and go from the parking lot. No one pays attention to Darcy sitting on the table.

When the orbs return Darcy disburses the bubbles with gratitude and is skinned by a searing exile through her mortar. Fallen idols slam into her from behind knocking the end out with the old. She lays down on the table, gasping, her legs empty ashtrays from sitting too long. She's bedtime stories, unable to fight back against the dog-eared pages. Finally, she manages to gulp in the end that then escapes as a howl while the channels change smothering her dead leaves like waves hammer the midnight and her wheezing finds its measure in short stabbing halves. As her dog-eared pages exit she realizes that Sam is clowns and Dean is midgets, which brings a brief smile to her lips.

It's their father. Mother fuck.

Darcy had met John on several occasions and never liked him much. It hadn't occurred to her that when she sent in the protection for the boys that John might need help too. He should know better. 

Now she can feel John tumbling deeper and deeper into the depths. It makes no sense. He was an ass, yes. Some of his methods may have been questionable over the years, but that was the job, or at least an accepted interpretation of life on the job. Do more good than you do harm. And John had, in her estimation, done more good than harm, just with a crappy bedside manner. He should have had a ticket upstairs to the pearly gates.

Unless that dumb son of a bitch had made a deal.

Darcy sits up and tests her legs. Once she's sure the feeling was back and they will hold her, she drops off the table and gets down on her knees, compelled to pray to the God of her childhood. Darcy asks if there was anyway to undo or at least ease the mess John has made for his boys, knowing that her request most likely falls on deaf ears. God hasn't paid attention for a very long time.

When she's done she thanks the orbs for their help. They loop and spin in circles before disappearing into the noonday sun.

As Darcy drags herself off her knees she sees a man approaching. She looks around and there is no one else in the park. He's definitely walking toward her. His shaggy light brown hair catches the sun creating a glow around his face, obscuring his features.

"Hello there!" he calls and waves.

Darcy sighs. The last thing she needs right now is a conversation with a stranger, but she's too exhausted to avoid him. "Hi," she replies, dusting off her jeans. "What can I do for ya?"

"I was going to ask you the same thing. You've been out here all morning. Wanted to make sure everything is alright." He sits down on the bench across from Darcy. 

"Oh, uh, thanks. I'm fine. Just heading out, actually."

He laces his fingers and sets them on the table, smiling at her.

Darcy asks, "You work at the hospital?"

"More of a volunteer."

"Okay, good for you. I should get going."

His face softens and the plastic smile becomes rueful. "Here's the thing. You've been out here since before dawn and a little bit ago it looked like you might be having a seizure."

"Oh, thanks for checking on me but," Darcy gestures to herself, "you can see I'm fine." She picks up her leather satchel and starts looking for her keys.

"You do indeed seem to be quite... fine."

Darcy looks up with a frown. His whiskey colored eyes dance with mirth and he bounces his eyebrows.

"Seriously, I gotta get..." Darcy is about to dump her bag on the table in search of her keys. The only thing she's afraid of is having to exert the energy required to kick his ass.

"Honey..." He says as leans over on the bench and reaches under the table. 

She slams her bag down. "Dickhead..."

He sits up, swinging her car keys on his finger.

"Looking for these?" he asks. "They were in the grass. Under the table."

Darcy covers her face with her hands. "I am so, so sorry." She blushes, "Oh, my god."

"Let's not bring him into this."

"It's been a really long night. I'm sorry."

He sets the keys on the table in front of her.

"Everybody okay?"

"As okay as they can be, I guess, thanks." She picks up the keys. "I just need some sleep."

"Get some rest."

An unexpected calm brushes over her with a breeze from the west.

"I will, thanks." 

Darcy makes her way back to the Camry and falls into the driver's seat.

She looks back into the park. The stranger has vanished. She shrugs figuring it took her longer than she thought to get to the car and he's already gone back into the hospital. She starts the engine, remembering a motel down the road a couple of miles. Nothing fancy but it should be a good place to sleep for the next two or three days.

Darcy is about to put the Camry into gear when she notices a feather in the passenger seat. It's the same whiskey color as the stranger's eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
